Minutes
School Facilities Subcommittee Meeting
September 1, 2011
A School Facilities Subcommittee meeting was held on Thursday, September 1st at 4:00 p.m. in
the Superintendent’s Conference Room. Present were: Ms. Barbara Isola, Mrs. Anne Mahoney
and Elaine Dwyer, Chair. Also present were Superintendent DeCristofaro, Eugene Caruso, Gary
Cunniff, Walter MacDonald, Kevin Murphy, and Laura Owens, Clerk.
Mrs. Dwyer called the meeting to order at 4:05 pm. The first item on the agenda was the status
of the former Quincy High School site. Mr. Cunniff explained that there is a Memorandum of
Agreement from 2006 between the City, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Massachusetts
State Historic Preservation Office regarding mothballing the building as opposed to demolishing
it. The City is considering hiring Epsilon to research the issue; the city’s position is that it can’t
be forced to retain a building that it can’t afford to maintain. Follow up with City Solicitor Jim
Timmins about a timeline for response to/from the Army Corps of Engineers?
In the meantime, the Public Buildings department is proceeding with the plans to tear down the
building. The hazardous materials survey is almost completed (projected for 9/2/11 and the
report will follow within a couple of days). Wessling Architects are writing the abatement and
demolition specs.
Question from Dave McCarthy via email: Are we or have we stripped everything of value from
the OLD school (lockers, copper, gymnasium backboards, etc.)? The remaining items include
the food service equipment and the boiler and attendant components. There was some discussion
of the cost to disassemble and move the boiler (almost as costly as buying it new), but there are
possible cost savings if it is moved intact during the demolition process.
The second agenda item was the status of the Coddington Building. Mr. MacDonald spoke to
the recent Request for Qualification (RFQ) process for the design phase. A number of
architecture firms were invited to walk through the space and eleven firms submitted proposals.
A committee consisting of Mr. MacDonald, Dr. DeCristofaro, and Paul Hynes reviewed the
proposals, using the state’s rating system to evaluate each firm. An Open Meeting was held to
review the results and five highly-qualified finalists were chosen.
Wessling Architects, a Quincy firm with a background in historic building redevelopment, was
chosen. Initial meetings have been held with Wessling and negotiations for the fee agreement
are underway.
The Coddington Building renovation project consists of over 20,000 square feet on two floors.
Mr. MacDonald’s projection is that the design phase of the project will take between 12 and 16
weeks.
The third agenda item was the City’s Capital Improvement Plan as it specifically pertains to
school roofs. Mr. Cunniff presented a spreadsheet of the school roof repair projects (see
attached) containing contract status, estimated start and completion dates, and estimated costs.
There are a total of seventeen projects; six have been awarded and another five are out for bid.
One of the largest projects is the replacement of the roof in the classroom area of the Lincoln
Hancock Community School. This project is out for bid, but some temporary patching was done
to ensure there would be no possibility of water damage in the recently refurbished classrooms.
It was requested that additional information be added to the spreadsheet to give specific
information about what section of the roof is being repaired and replaced, as well as the warranty
information.
The fourth agenda item was the new Quincy High School punchlist (see attached). Most items
have been completed, with five issues still in process.
Questions from Dave McCarthy via email: When will the new QHS punch list be completed for
final review? We added several items last walk thru to include many plaster cracks, gymnasium
lights and painting beam, front door adjustments, new water fountains, and so on. All are
completed, except painting the beam. Is the kitchen floor going to be addressed? It has been
cleaned. When will new large monitors be installed in Security desk area? These have been
purchased and should be installed in the next two weeks. Is the landscaping agreement with the
outside contractor over? Yes, the one-year review of the landscaping has been completed and
several trees and shrubs will be replaced at no cost, as well as grass that did not come up. Do we
have any issues with the boys or girls locker room in the new QHS gym? Are they damaged?
Carpenters repaired dents. Has the first floor hallway near guidance been stripped and waxed
properly to remove the GLYCOL stain from the large leak (months ago)? Yes – looks fine.
The fifth agenda item was the status of the Central Middle School project. Mr. Caruso said that
96 subcontractors have submitted their qualifications for review; general contractor RFQs are
due on 9/15/11. The City is still to award the contract for demolition, which is projected to take
three months. There will be a Central Building Committee meeting on Tuesday, September 6 at
4:00 in the Superintendent’s Conference Room on the 3rd floor of the NAGE Building.
The final agenda item was a discussion of School Maintenance issues. Mr. Murphy reported on
the very productive summer for the Maintenance Department staff (see attached list). Many SIP
issues were addressed (see attached annotated list) and multiple FEMA-funded painting projects
were completed (see attached list). In addition, glycol was added to the heating systems at
Beechwood Knoll and Bernazzani; the plan is to budget for this at several schools each year as it
is very costly to do all at once ($142,000).
With all agenda items having been discussed and no additional items suggested for discussion,
the meeting was adjourned at 5:20 pm.